Sheri Catalina was going through a nasty divorce with no way to pay for it.

Her lawyer offered her a way out: He asked the human services caseworker to slip him confidential information out of a child-sex-abuse investigation the agency was conducting. In exchange for that information, the lawyer would waive a $400 consultation fee for her divorce.

Catalina got the information from the file but says she balked at giving it over. The agency fired her anyway.

Valerie McNaughton, a Career Service hearing officer, recently backed the agency.

McNaughton stated in her Aug. 22 ruling that she could not ignore Catalina’s offense and noted that state law as well as the agency’s own rules protect confidentiality of some information in child-abuse investigations.

“Appellant’s attorney sought to learn the identity of an informant in a child sex abuse case for the stated purpose of prosecuting the informant for a malicious filing of the complaint,” McNaughton stated. “Appellant took several substantial steps towards providing that information over several days before deciding not to disclose it. In this context, I cannot find that termination was an unreasonable level of discipline for the proven violations of the rules.”

Catalina had been employed with the families and children division of the Denver Department of Human Services at the time of her firing. She had worked for the agency for 13 years and had gotten into a position where she had access to confidential information regarding reports of child abuse.

Documents submitted by her and the agency in connection with her appeal of her firing redacted the name of the lawyer and identified him only by the initials J.M. to protect the privacy of the parties involved in the child-sex-abuse investigation.

The documents state that on Feb. 22 the lawyer offered to waive his $400 consultation fee if she would disclose the name of the informant involved who had tipped the agency off to alleged child sex abuse.

McNaughton talked about the offer with a co-worker and friend, Veronica Newland, who advised her not to turn the information over to the lawyer.

On Feb. 28, the lawyer called again and repeated his request for the name of the person who had reported the alleged child sex abuse. Later that day, Catalina asked another co-employee to copy the contents of the confidential file for her and ended up sharing the details with Newland.

“They both reacted with shock to the identity of the reporting party,” McNaughton’s ruling stated. “They agreed that it was ‘scary’ that they were reading the sex abuse file, and thought that revealing the name could tear the family apart.”

Newland once again advised her friend not to divulge the information, and Catalina testified that she had the 15 pages of copies shredded. She testified that later that night, when she thought the lawyer would be out of the office, she telephoned him and, reading from a script she had prepared so as not to mess up, left a message telling him she could not give him the information.

In March, she ended up telling her supervisor she had looked up some of the information in the agency’s computer system but had not conveyed it.

The supervisor, LeTunya Savage, investigated further and found that copies of the file had been made. When the agency initiated disciplinary action, Catalina pleaded for leniency, stating that the stress of the divorce had clouded her judgment. She also said she never actually forwarded the information to the lawyer.

Pollack found no other major red flags in her performance, but he decided the agency’s trust in Catalina could not be restored given that the “core value to protect client confidentiality should have weighed heavier.”

Neither Catalina nor the lawyer who contested her firing, Michael O’Malley, could be reached for comment.

Christopher N. Osher is a reporter on the investigation team at The Denver Post who has covered law enforcement, judicial and regulatory issues for the news organization. He also has reported from war zones in Africa.